Translate

lunedì 16 giugno 2014

Rome showcases early 20th-century Jewish women artists

Unprecedented GNAM show through October 5

(ANSA)
- Rome, June 16 - A show of early 20th-century Italian Jewish women
artists highlights their condition as a minority, in the year in
which the 15th European Day of Jewish Heritage takes as its theme
'Women in Judaism'. From the Modigliani sisters to Adriana Pincherle
and Antonietta Raphael, this beautiful exhibit of 150 works by 15
artists runs through October 5 in Rome's Modern Art Gallery (GNAM).
Titled 'Novecento Women Artists Between Jewish Vision and Identity',
the show not only displays the undoubted talent and individual
personalities of these artists, but also traces the social and
cultural milieu in which they grew and flourished, allowing viewers
to reconstruct the artistic environment of the first decades of the
20th century between the academy and the avant-garde.

And
while women were penalized as a gender and Jewish women doubly so,
they also benefited from the strength of their families and their
tradition, which places a high value on education for both sexes.
''There was no illiteracy in Jewish families, as both boys and girls
had to study in order to be able to read the Torah'', explained one
of the curators. Such was the case of Annie Nathan (1878-1946), whose
father Ernesto was the mayor of Rome for six years, and who grew up
in a cosmopolitan environment imbued with the republican and
democratic ideals of Giuseppe Mazzini, one of modern Italy's founding
fathers.

Nathan
studied with Giacomo Balla, in whose school she learned to ''paint
reality from reality'', entrusting her vision to pure and vivid
colors. She died in Switzerland, where she fled Italy's anti-Semitic
racial laws. Corinna Modigliani (1891-1959), a second-degree cousin
to the better-known painter and sculptor Amedeo, studied in the
atelier of Pietro Vanni and was also influenced by Balla, her
landscapes and portraits of children swimming against backgrounds of
chromatically interacting patches recalling the master's Divisionist
period. Like Corinna, her younger sister Olga (1873-1968) embarked on
what was at the time considered an unconventional lifestyle,
eschewing marriage in favor of travel and art. An undisputed master
of ceramic decoration, her work was exhibited at the 1914 Venice
Biennale and featured in both private and public collections.

Turin-born
Paola Levi Montalcini (1909-2000) is represented with early work from
the 1920s, when like most of her city's avant-garde she was
influenced by Felice Casorati. There are also paintings from her
Abstract Expressionist period, and canvases from the 1970s, when she
explored the limits between art and mathematics. The last two
exhibition halls are dedicated to the two most prominent Jewish women
artists. Pincherle (1909-1996), the elder sister of renowned Italian
novelist Alberto Moravia, studied the Impressionists in Paris and was
heavily influenced by Henri Matisse, whose flat perspectives and
vibrant palette infuse her lovely portraits and still lives. Raphael
(Lithuania 1895-Rome 1975), whose paintings and sculptures are a
testament to her undisputed talent, was ignored by critics until the
1950s, when she finally gained recognition for her artistic output
between the two world wars. Curated by Marina Bakos, Rome Jewish
Museum Director Olga Melasecchi, and Federica Pirani, the show is
promoted by the Rome department of culture, the Capitoline
superintendency, the non-profit Foundation for Jewish Cultural Assets
in Italy, and the Rome Jewish Museum.